Pakistan on the brink

With a wave of terror attacks, its army battling jihadis, the political system deeply divided and its economy in tatters,Pakistan is close to collapse. Can it be saved?

advertisement

Hasan Zaidi

Karachi November 5, 2009

ISSUE DATE: November 16, 2009

UPDATED: November 6, 2009 12:07 IST

The massive car bomb that ripped through the congested Meena Bazaar in Peshawar on October 28, leaving human limbs, charred torsos and bloodied women and children under rubble in its wake, was probably the starkest reminder to ordinary Pakistanis of what they are up against.

The hellish scene of helter-skelter panic, bodies being carried to ambulances, wailing people in shock and raging fires as entire buildings collapsed, only drove home the point that the rules of engagement in Pakistan's long-running war against militancy had changed. "As things fall apart around us, it is a struggle to make sense of any of it," wrote columnist Cyril Almeida in Dawn. "Hold your head or cover your face or curl up in a foetal position, escape is impossible."

Over 115 people-mostly women and children-perished that day, adding heavy numbers to the death toll from a wave of terrorist attacks that has surpassed 350 since the beginning of October alone. The worst attack on a civilian target came even as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad for a three-day visit to demonstrate American support in Pakistan's dark hour, which many still believe has been visited precisely because of its alliance with the US.

Peshawar's Meena Bazaar goes up in flames after the October 28 car bombing

The attacks have grown not just in daring but in brutality and reach. Believed to be triggered by the loosely termed 'Pakistan Taliban' and Al-Qaeda elements, they have previously specifically targeted security forces and installations but now seem to be mindlessly going after civilians. Even Dawn's editorial acknowledged that "the state is floundering in the face of an unprecedented wave of violence".

Concerned by the alarming spread of Taliban-like militancy, the Pakistan Army has mounted a decisive battle in the remote tribal region of South Waziristan-codenamed Rah-i-Nijaat (Path of Deliverance)-to go after what it terms "the centre of gravity" of terrorism in Pakistan.

Around 30,000 troops are now deployed in South Waziristan alone, backed by heavy artillery, tanks, helicopter gunships and F-16 jets. The military has long claimed that the "roots of most terror attacks in the country and militancy in other areas" are in the Mehsud tribal area of the semi-autonomous agency.

Troops patrol Taliban and Al-Qaeda strongholds in the latest offensive

It claims that it is battling some 10,000 hardened fighters here, including some 1,000-1,500 mostly Uzbek foreign militants, allied with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of Baitullah Mehsud who was killed in a US drone attack on August 5 and who had been on top of Pakistan's most-wanted list for many years. Officials claim that the area serves as a refuge and training ground for militants from all over Pakistan- including the so-called 'Punjabi Taliban'-as well as Al-Qaeda-linked foreign militants.

And as if matters were not critical enough, Pakistan's politics is undergoing the sort of period of nervous doubt the short democratic history of the country is replete with. At its centre is a growing distrust and disconnect between the establishment, especially the army, and President Asif Ali Zardari.

The rumour mill is ripe with speculation that it is the beginning of the end for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) cochairman, especially after it looks increasingly unlikely that the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) will be ratified by Parliament. Without that law in place, all of the corruption allegations against the President and his cronies-many of them in powerful positions in government now-could be reopened. The speculation centres around whether Zardari will be the only one to go or will take down the system with him.

For an economy hit by the global recession, power shortages and high inflation, the current uncertainty about security and the political situation has been nothing less than a death knell.

Marketplaces and restaurants in most of Pakistan-except for Karachi, ironically spared an attack so far-wear a deserted look and the paranoia is almost palpable. The spate of attacks and Pakistan's precarious security situation has fanned anxiety in world capitals, including Delhi, about the capacity of Pakistan to withstand such relentless terror.

The big worry: Can Pakistan be saved? The nightmarish scenario for the world is a nuclear-armed Pakistan going the Afghanistan way and ending up as a dangerously splintered and Talibanised nation.

That is why the do-or-die battle that the Pakistan Army is fighting in the tribal areas is critical to its survival. And it is the reason the Pakistani public has never been more committed to uprooting militancy from its soil with most people viewing the spate of terror attacks as the predictable fallout of this commitment. As an air and ground military offensive pushes on in South Waziristan, polls indicate that only 13 per cent of the population opposes the army's thrust into the area.

The US also believes that Al-Qaeda has set up base in parts of North and South Waziristan since 2002, and since 2004 the CIA has been targeting militant leaders with unmanned drones. Such attacks have intensified in the last two years to howls of protest from Pakistanis. However, the Pakistan Army's own attempts to deal with the brutal militancy in the area-which consolidated itself by wiping out a generation of traditional tribal leaders- have, before now, been abject failures.

Pakistan Taliban chief Hakeemullah Mehsud (centre) in a frame taken from a news video.

The army's first three forays into the region-in 2004, 2006 and 2008- all ended in humiliating climbdowns. Aside from last year, when the operation was aborted before it even began, the army suffered so heavily in 2004 and 2006 that it was forced to sue for peace and cut deals with local warlords. Officials claim this time things will be different.

"We have done our spadework this time," says one senior army commander, "We have been preparing for this operation for three months and we have a national political consensus behind us. That is a big difference. The public understands that these terrorists will strike out in desperation but that if this scourge is to be stopped, it must be uprooted."

The "spadework" involved cutting advance deals with other tribal warlords- such as Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan and Maulvi Nazir of the Waziri tribe in South Waziristan, previously allied with the TTP-to remain neutral in the action. "The army realised after the problems of the previous operations that it could not afford to take on all the militants at the same time," says the army source.

It has also tried to isolate the Baitullah Mehsud group-now led by his successor Hakeemullah Mehsud-by allying for now with its rivals within the Mehsud tribe, such as the Abdullah Mehsud group and Turkistan Bhittani, whose focus has largely been Afghanistan.

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani

The largely successful Swat operation seems to have convinced the US that the Pakistan military's strategy of isolating the hard core from its less imminently threatening potential sympathisers may not be such a bad tactical move. "We convinced them that our priority had to be those who posed the most immediate danger to Pakistan," explains the source.

"That is the only way we could get public and local support. We have to take things one step at a time." Pakistan has also apparently asked the US not to interfere to avoid any impression that this was not aPakistani operation, nor even to issue any statements of direct support.

Tactically, the army has moved towards the Mehsud area in a pincer movement from three directions and blocked the strip of land separating the area from the Afghanistan border. It has also relied heavily this time on aerial bombardment to "soften up" their targets. This, as in the Swat operation before it, necessitated large-scale shifting of civilian populations, which has led to a new growing humanitarian crisis.

Camps established in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, bordering the area, have seen a steady influx of poor, bedraggled families, many of whom have fled with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Although the numbers of the internally displaced persons are nowhere near the magnitude seen earlier from the Malakand region-the estimate for the displaced is about two lakh-the remoteness of the region and the military's choking off of exit points before the launch of the operation, has meant there are many horror stories of families forced to travel by foot over rocky terrain to escape the bombing.

However, the "national consensus" over the operation has largely inured the military so far to the humanitarian fallout of the campaign. This consensus was evident from the meeting on October 16 of the entire civilian leadership represented in Parliament with the army and ISI chief, which gave the go-ahead.

US Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton with Pashtun representatives in Islamabad.

According to insiders at the meeting, ISI chief General Shuja Pasha told the gathering: "You cannot imagine how many people are on the hit-list of terrorists? They are not only important personalities and politicians but some ordinary people in different professions."

The meeting had come after a week of successive attacks in Islamabad, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Kohat and Lahore, including an audacious fidayeen attack on the General Headquarters of the army itself on October 11 which led to a hostage situation lasting almost 20 hours. Although the operation in Waziristan was clearly in the works for longer, many see the attack on the GHQ as perhaps the last straw for the army.

Going into Waziristan, the army clearly believed that the aim of the militants was nothing less than destabilising the entire country. But even the military was perhaps unprepared for what it has so far discovered.

In Sherawangi, a small mud-hut village on top of a ridge surrounded by olive gardens captured by the army, it not only discovered the passport of Said Bahaji-one of reputed members of the infamous Hamburg Cell of 9/11 attacker Mohammad Atta-but also a full communications control room, connected to the world through satellite links and the Internet.

Soldiers detain alleged militants at an undisclosed location

More and more, it seems Al-Qaeda rather than the TTP is operationally in charge in the area. Pakistani officials feel that the terror attacks against "soft civilian targets"- such as the ones on the Peshawar bazaars, the World Food Programme (WFP) offices in Islamabad and the threat against schools throughout Pakistan, are also indicative of the involvement of foreign planners.

Incidentally, Pakistan has also indicated recovering Indian-made arms and medicines from some locations in South Waziristan and its interior minister has pointedly claimed that "we have solid evidence that not only in Balochistan but India is involved in almost every terrorist activity in Pakistan". It is not clear whether such claims are simply political ripostes to Indian rhetoric against Pakistan or whether they convey something more substantial.

Even as the military battles it out, there is increasing concern about the political stability of Pakistan and the growing rift especially between the army and President Zardari. The establishment had always been distrustful of Zardari and some of his close associates because of their controversial- in its view compromised-past, but new fissures erupted recently over the American Kerry-Lugar Bill which promised $7.5 billion as aid to Pakistan over the next five years for civilian projects alone. Pakistan's ailing economy could definitely do with the influx of cash, but the army reacted with surprising public hostility to some of the language contained in the bill, which it claimed contained conditions that compromised national sovereignty and was insulting to it.

Whatever the merits of the bill and the military's opinion about it, what made matters worse was that the PPP Government-with Zardari's overt backing-initially ignored the military's reservations and unreservedly welcomed the American assistance. The resulting brouhaha over the bill, played up by the media and joined in by the Opposition, managed to isolate Zardari as someone willing to compromise the country's sovereignty. The fiasco over the NRO-widely perceived as a black law whitewashing official corruption-only compounded Zardari's problems of image.

Many political pundits believe that President Zardari is slowly being isolated in a way that the only way out for him may be to step down or to accept remaining only as figure-head President. Sensing his weakness, he has attempted to patch matters up once again with opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, by offering to follow through on his long-forgotten promise of giving up the powers accumulated in the president's office by his predecessor General Musharraf.

It may not be enough: with the NRO gone, his opponents may move in for the kill through the recently restored independent judiciary. For his part, Sharif is finding it tricky to walk the line between playing into the hands of the establishment he distrusts on the one hand, and the desire of his own party for power on the other.

But everything is not bleak for the PPP Government. For one, no serious political observer believes the army is interested in toppling the democratic process, at least for now. The conditions for military rule simply do not exist internationally and General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in particular would not want to lose the public respect he has rebuilt for the military.

Second, at least on the issue of the antimilitancy operation, there is complete unison of view between the military and the civilian Government. The military has often complained in the past that the political will to suffer the consequences of taking on the militants- many of them nurtured by the military itself in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and against India in Kashmir-was lacking.

It claimed that politicians often did not have the stomach to face up to public opinion when casualties mounted or when political allies objected to action against their constituents. But even President Zardari recently told his party members that "there is no turning back... until the complete elimination of the militants".

The army claims that the major part of the operation will be over in another month-and-a-half. That is certainly what the hope is, since the bitterly cold winter will set in in the area in December, which will make military operations much more difficult, especially against an enemy more used to the terrain and climate. The army has made a number of gains so far and faced much less resistance than they were expecting but whether they can continue to hold on to the captured towns and strategic terrain in the long term still remains to be seen.

No one, however, believes the military operation alone will be enough to clear militancy from the area. All that the military operation hopes to do is to disrupt the militant networks enough for local tribes to reassert themselves and to create the space for some sort of a political process to work. Mindsets cultivated through decades of military policy and political opportunism will take much more than one Rah-i-Nijaat to change.

But the success of the current army operation and any future reconstruction of society in the militancyplagued areas is also dependent on a seriousness of focus. To achieve this, the Pakistani political and military elite will need to set aside their petty squabbles over power and turf. Failure born out of distraction is simply not an option for Pakistan or the world.